The South Paris plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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South Paris’s center stands about 380 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 340 ft to 1,070 ft, a difference of 730 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Spruce Mountain, about 2,410 ft, 14 miles north-northwest.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Carboniferous alkali feldspar granite (muscovite accessory, abundant sedimentary inclusions), from the Carboniferous, 299 to 359 million years old.
The section below crosses 7 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 15×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granite. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 359 million years old. About 10 mi of the line.
Marble. Age: Silurian, 428 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metasandstone. Age: Silurian, 434 to 445 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 359 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granite. Age: Devonian, 359 to 422 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Shale, sandstone. Age: Silurian, 428 to 434 million years old. About 0.7 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 1 smaller unit along the line are not listed.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in South Paris reaches the Atlantic Ocean by way of the Little Androscoggin, the Androscoggin and the Kennebec: about 80 river miles.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of South Paris; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
